The Friday Flag That Won't Be

Happy Republica Day to all our Italian readers. World War 1990: Esercito Italiano is coming next year.

Spotted in Middlesex, New Jersey. 

Sat shiva for a member of our synagogue last night. 

What Will's Watching: Airport 1975. We finished this bit of mid-70s disaster porn yesterday. All we can say is Airport 1975 feels like the mid-70s in every way possible. We'll go deeper into that idea in another post. There's some pretty aerial cinematography here, with a 747 majestically flying through the Rockies. There's also an impressive stunt with a man dangling out a helicopter at 5,000 feet. But otherwise, Airport 1975 is filled with bad melodrama and badly conceived plot points. There's none of the confident professionalism from the airport and airline personnel one sees in Airport. This movie sucks.

Airport 1975's casting is at once impressive and odd.  Charlton Heston plays the role of Rex Cramer. George Kennedy is back as Big Joe Petroni. Kennedy mostly yells at people. And watch out for Erik Estrada, Sid Caeser (who's annoying, probably on purpose) and Gloria Swanson, who looked great! Oh my god, Linda Blair. Also, there's a trio of sitcom supporting actors all drinking together in the airport bar and later on board the flight. 

Who can name those three sitcom stars and the sitcoms from which they come?

The leader of this blog's Confederate Contingent wants us to put a Confederate flag on the new cover of World War 1990: The Weser...god damnit that's not a bad idea. It's a lot of trouble though. I'm not even sure if Amazon would allow the Stars and Bars. The flag would distract as well. 'Now what's this book about?' 

Worth restating, in The Weser an African American regular army officer takes command of a leaderless (and fictional) National Guard unit from the Carolinas. Friction ensues, friction which leads to understanding and brotherhood in arms. Sooner or later some moron is going to slam this plot point. We hope they do. Controversy is great for book sales. 

Segue...We find Confederate apologists online (not enthusiasts) annoying. The Civil War was about slavery. It just was. See for example the work of William C. Davis, a Southerner, mind you. Which does not mean Johnnie Reb was marching into Yankee guns to protect someone else's right to slaves. The Johnnie's motives were complicated. People are complicated, and therefore so is history. Once again see the work of William C. Davis. 

You know who's even more annoying than Confederate apologists? A certain breed of Twitter activist who wants to refight the Civil War and tell you that Bobby Lee was a traitor who should have been hung. They completely miss the point of the war and Reconstruction. And by the way, these people always have Ukrainian flags in their bios. Hey, I'm a Yankee, I'm a Unionist, I'm a blue belly. I root for Grant and applaud Sherman. I just don't need to dig up the dead.